The consumer city is a model that has been used to characterize the ancient city. It was originally developed by Max Weber, expanding on the work of Sombart, as one in a series of ideal types of city, and subsequently enlarged on by Moses Finley (Cite 1989; Finley 1977; Jongman 1988, 2002; Whittaker 1990, 1993). A ‘‘consumer city’’ is one where the major income of urban consumers comes from rural rents, where the products of local rural labor supply the subsistence needs of the urban population, and where manufacturing and inter-regional commerce are ‘‘essentially petty.’’ Many ancient historians have found the model very attractive in that it seems to fit well with literary testimony of the ruling classes on their economic outlook and urban-centered lifestyle. Finley, in particular, argued that the parasitical relationship between consumer city and its rural hinterland operated in favor of highly localized and small-scale economies and against economic development, urban manufacturing, and inter-regional trade (1977). In recent times, opposition to the model has increased, in part because Weber’s ideal types were essentially designed to model the economic characteristics of pre-industrial cities (Weber 1958), whereas the ‘‘consumer city’’ has become a leitmotif for the ancient city as a political and social center (Erdkamp 2001; Parkins 1997b). In addition, the growth in archaeological evidence has shown that the urban economy was far less uniform than is sometimes assumed and that some towns, notably harbor cities, had a much greater engagement with manufacturing and commerce (A. Wilson 2002b).
The scale ofmanufacturing in the ancient world has been much debated. There was a significant level ofproduction that was little more than domestic. At the other extreme, it is generally admitted that the term ‘‘factory’’ is inappropriate and that the largest level of production may be characterized as a manufactory, perhaps employing up to 30 people and with some job specialization (Peacock 1982: esp. 1-11, 90-128; cf. Fulle 1997). However, recent work on Pompeii has emphasized the aggregate significance of numerous small workshops (Laurence 1994; D. J. Mattingly 1990; Parkins 1997b), and similar studies of textile production/fulling at Timgad in Algeria or of fish products at Sabratha in Libya show the potential for this sort of analysis elsewhere (A. Wilson 1999a, 2001, 2002b). At the Tunisian port city of Leptiminus, extensive surface survey of the city and its suburbs has revealed that these heavily developed suburbs covered an area as large as the urban core. The production of amphorae for the overseas transport of olive oil and fish sauces was the major component here (Mattingly et al. 2001; Stirling et al. 2001: 215-19). This sort of evidence is compatible with the long-known epigraphic dossiers of craft workers from Rome, Pompeii, and other epigraphically-rich centers (Brewster 1917; Burford 1972; Loane 1938).
Although there is now more evidence for manufacturing activity at major urban centers, not all industry was located in towns. Some major craft activities have a much more rural distribution. Pottery manufacture is dependent on the location of the raw materials (clay, sand, water) and fuel for firing. The markets for potters also varied and included the military and estate owners with liquid commodities to shift to market. Many landowners with access to raw materials evidently tried to develop them in situ.
World History
